


Mischief Managed

by midnightsnapdragon



Series: Nostalgia [9]
Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: F/M, Hogwarts AU, The Lunar Chronicles Ship Weeks, Trouble theme, Winter has the Marauder's Map, for mystery-solving purposes of course, kids rearranging Professor Benoit's files, tlc ship weeks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightsnapdragon/pseuds/midnightsnapdragon
Summary: In which a Ravenclaw and a Slytherin break into a teacher's office, ostensibly to look for clues. (Jacin doesn't actually know what he's doing here; Winter's being all mysterious again.)





	Mischief Managed

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2015-2016 Ship Weeks, themed "Trouble".

**i.**

“She keeps the key in a secret compartment.” Winter riffled through Professor Benoit’s bookcase, letting her fingers dance over titles and leather bindings. “Somewhere you wouldn’t expect to find it.”

Jacin looked up from where he was going through the desk drawers. He gave her a skeptical look. “And you know this how, exactly?”

A shrug. “I have my sources.” She moved on to the office’s paneled wooden walls, pushing and pulling to test for hidden doors. There was no need to explain that she got her information from a crystal ball and a certain shy Ravenclaw girl. “There are answers everywhere, if you just know where to look.”

“Sure,” he muttered, shutting the last drawer with exaggerated caution. “Whatever you say, Trouble.”

Winter cast him a slightly guilty look before dropping to her knees and pressing her ear against the wooden floorboards. She still had not told Jacin what they were really doing here tonight, why she’d gone to all the trouble of sending him an encrypted note (delivered by owl at breakfast) so they could raid their Herbology teacher’s files.

If she explained, he might start to think that she was every bit as crazy as rumour claimed she was.

Lips pressed together, she knocked softly on the floorboards, listening for echoes.

“So,” said Jacin casually, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms, “are you going to explain what this is about?"

Cheek squished against a bit of carpet, Winter considered it for a moment. “No.”

“You know, I’m not going to help you blindly. I’m a prefect. If Professor Benoit catches us – or worse, her granddaughter –“

“Scarlet is my friend,” she said blithely, crawling to another spot of floor.

He huffed. “Yeah, well, she isn’t mine. You might get off scot-free for this, but I’m not exactly a favourite among the staff. Or the students.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” _Knock, knock._ “You’re the most loveable person I’ve ever met.”

A smile tugged at his lips as he pointed at her. “Don’t play innocent. I know you, Winter, remember? We’ve been friends since before Hogwarts. You wouldn’t mess with a teacher’s office just for the hell of it, that’s Thorne’s job. So while I appreciate the invitation …” He trailed off. “What are you doing?”

Winter had gotten to her feet and was now balancing precariously on her tiptoes with one hand in the small chandelier, feeling around the candle-holders. “Looking for the key,” she told him matter-of-factly, yanking her singed fingers away.

Jacin threw up his hands. “What key? Are you going to give me a straight answer or not?”

She merely steadied the chandelier and winked at him.

Sighing, he crossed the room to the window and peered out at the grounds. “Fine. Just make sure you finish before she gets back.”

Winter glanaced at the enormous piece of parchment spread out on the desk. The Marauder’s Map, folded to show Professor Benoit’s office and the surrounding corridors, didn’t indicate that anyone else was in the area except them. “We still have time.”

Jacin followed her look to the map, and scowled. “I don’t trust that thing. How do we know it’s not infused with Dark magic?”

Winter didn’t reply. While she had never doubted the map, Jacin had been telling her for years to get rid of it. It was too powerful, he said. There was no such enchantment that could allow a piece of paper to show the presence of the living and the dead, to know their names, to follow their footsteps.

The map concerned her, too, but not in the same way. On the cover flaps were four black signatures – so familiar to her that she could have perfectly forged them while blindfolded.

_Lemoncake, Frankenstein, Blanche, Lionheart._

She felt that twinge again, the insatiable curiosity. How many times had this map come to her aid? How many hours had she wandered the castle grounds at night, with only these mysterious characters and their fantastic creation for company?

Why couldn’t she find out anything about who they were?

“Look, I know you wouldn’t do this without good intentions, but there’s nothing here. Michelle Benoit is just a normal old witch. She’s not even involved with the Ministry!”

Winter shook her head to clear it. The Marauders would have to wait; she had more important things to do tonight.

“I think,” she said slowly, turning to meet Jacin’s cold blue eyes, “that she may be involved in something much more interesting.”

“Pleased don’t tell me it’s about Nargles.”

“No.” Winter wrapped her arms around herself and looked at the floor. She didn’t want to see the look on his face – what if he decided that she really was crazy?

_Say it. You have to say it aloud. Bring your thoughts into words, and your words into actions, and maybe that will make it real …_

Goosebumps spread across her skin as she whispered, “Selene Blackburn.”

When he said nothing, she looked up through her eyelashes. Jacin was staring at her like she’d sprouted a second head.

“Selene? Are you –“ He stopped, seeming to think better of what he was going to say. “Selene is dead.”

“I have reason to believe that she is not,” she said, in her best Ravenclaw voice. “And that Professor Benoit may have something to do with it.”

Jacin sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “This is why you dragged me out in the middle of the night? I thought it was going to be some good-natured mischief, rearranging her files or something. For old time’s sake. But that’s not at all what you had in mind, is it?”

Winter had expected disbelief and anger. She had expected him to scoff at her, to laugh and completely dismiss her as crazy. She had not expected this, this …

Disappointment?

“She was my friend,” she said softly, looking away again. “Yours too. If there’s any chance, any chance at all that she might be alive …”

“Then it would solve all our problems, wouldn’t it? Salazar Slytherin would have an heir and Levana would never harass the Muggles again. But she’s dead, Winter.” He turned away, as if he didn’t want to meet her gaze. “We should leave. _There is nothing here.”_

Winter opened her mouth to say something, to convince him to stay, to blurt out all her fears and hopes and misgivings about Selene … but she never got the chance.

Because when Jacin’s heel came down on the floor, in a spot neither of them had thought to check, there was a soft _plink._

And a small brass key materialized on Professor Benoit’s desk.

Forgetting their argument, Winter gave a delighted gasp and snatched it up.

Jacin’s mouth fell open. “How did that –“

“Magic, Jacin, magic!” Certain beyond a shadow of doubt of what she had to do, Winter bent over the desk drawers again and yanked them open, one by one.

The first was full of Herbology books and unmarked assignments. The second – farm bills, customer orders, pastry recipes …

The third was empty.

Eyes shining, hardly daring to breath, she shut it again and fit the key into the lock.

_Click._

Jacin knelt at her side, his expression indecipherable.

“Mischief managed,” Winter whispered to herself, and peeked inside the drawer. 

**ii.**

It was completely bare except for a small scrap of parchment.

Winter stared at it, heart pounding. Here it was – an answer, a clue, _something._ All her schemes and secret hopes, come to fruition. 

When she didn’t move, Jacin plucked the note out himself. He held it so they could both read what it had to say:

_Congratulations! You are now in terrible danger._

_There used to be four of us. We coexisted in careful harmony, like the founders of the Hogwarts houses, and worked together to create wonderful things – things that could benefit wizards and Muggles alike._

_Then one of us grew hungry for power. She wanted the wizarding race to stand above all others, to make Muggles and unworthy Muggle-borns bow at her feet, and she became willing to sacrifice innocent people for these measures. She once had a lover among us, but when he tried to stop her, she had him killed. The two of us who were left had to go into hiding._

_Only we know that Selene Blackburn is alive. She is hidden in the safest place in the world, where she will never find her. It is now up to you to make sure Selene is safe and knows her own heritage._

_We don’t have much time left. Soon, she will track us down, and there will be nothing you can do for us. There is nothing we can do for you, either._

_You know what is at stake. Good luck._

_-Frankenstein, Lemoncake_

Winter exhaled and leaned back. Beside her, Jacin went absolutely still, looking like he’d seen a ghost.

Realization dawned on them both.

“Michelle Benoit is a Marauder,” he said under his breath.

Winter shook her head slowly. “Selene is truly alive.” With a sideways glance at him, she promised, “I won’t say ‘I told you so’.”

Jacin didn’t seem to hear her. “Then” – he glanced with narrowed eyes at the parchment note – “Who’s the rogue, the one that had her lover killed?” 

Neither of them responded. This much, at least, was obvious.

The rogue Marauder was Levana.


End file.
